It's been nearly a year since the owners of Nashville's phenomenally popular Hattie B's Hot Chicken announced they were branching out and opening a location in Birmingham, their first outside the Music City. Opening day finally arrives today, June 1. Pictured here outside their new Hattie B's restaurant in Birmingham's Lakeview District are, from left, executive chef John Lasater, co-owner Nick Bishop Sr., and his son and co-owner Nick Bishop Jr. To get a sneak peek inside the restaurant and at some of the items on the menu -- as well as learn a little history about how Hattie B's grew to become one of Nashville's hottest hot chicken joints and how it got to Birmingham -- continue reading.

A quick history lesson: Part I

Nick Bishop Sr. retired in 2007 after about working for Morrison’s Cafeterias for about 30 years. Retirement lasted only a couple of months, though, before he opened Bishop’s Meat & Three Restaurant in Franklin, Tenn. Nick Bishop Jr., who had been in the music business in Nashville working for John Prine’s Oh Boy Records, later joined his father and soon took over running the restaurant. “Within about three or four months, I would show up for work and they said, ‘What are you doing here?’’’ Nick Sr. recalls. “So I kind of worked myself out a job for the most part.”

A quick history lesson: Part II

At Bishop’s Meat & Three, the father and son started experimenting with a hot chicken recipe and added it to the menu. “We had a lot of great comments on it there,” Nick Bishop Sr. says. “So I kind of backed away and started putting together an opening plan and a strategy so that we could open our first HB’s operation, which we did in August of 2012, right there at Broadway in the Midtown area of Nashville.” The Bishops opened their second Hattie B’s in West Nashville in 2014.

Just who is Hattie B, anyway?

“Hattie” is a family name that’s been in the Bishop family for three generations. “My grandmother’s name was Hattie,” Nick Bishop Sr. says. “My mother’s name is Hattie Melba Bishop. And my soon-to-be-5-year-old granddaughter, her name is Hattie Bright Bishop. . . . So we knew ‘Hattie’ needed to be in there. And the ‘B’s’ just kind of floated out there, and we said. ‘That’s golden.’ It’s just a great name.”

Nashville's 'badge of pride'

As did most folks, the Bishops got their first taste of hot chicken from Nashville’s legendary Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, a Music City institution that goes all the way back to the 1930s. When Nick Jr. was a boy, his dad would bring Prince’s hot chicken home and share with his son and twin daughters Brittany and Erin. Until a few years ago, though, spicy chicken could only be found in Nashville’s black neighborhoods, at places like Prince’s and Bolton’s Spicy Chicken & Fish. But as Nashville has taken off, so has hot chicken. And what once was an obscure dish is now a thing. “Nashville has become this sort of national darling,” Nick Bishop Jr. says. “People from all over the country want to move there and visit. Everything has kind of converged on Nashville, and lo and behold, we’ve got this indigenous kind of dish that is only Nashville. And now it’s something that’s a badge of pride.”

The Birmingham connection

Opening a Hattie B’s in Birmingham is kind of like coming home for the Bishops, who lived in Trussville in the 1980s and early ‘90s, back when Nick Sr. was working for Morrison’s Cafeterias. “We moved here from Hattiesburg (Miss.) when I was about 3 and lived here for about seven years,” Nick Jr. remembers. Nick Sr. still has two sisters who live in the Birmingham area. “We are a close-knit family and stay connected,” he says. “We’ll have probably four to six of my nieces and nephews that will help us when we open this place.”

How about the chicken?

Hattie B’s serves white and dark meat fried chicken, as well as wings, tenders and half-chickens. The chicken is available at escalating levels of heat – from “Southern” (for those who prefer no heat at all) to “mild” to “medium” to “hot” to “damn hot” to “shut the cluck up.” The Hattie B’s management team prefers the hot. “It gives you a good burn,” executive chef John Lasater says. “All of the hot chicken places in (Nashville), you can go get hot chicken and it’s hot. We wanted hot chicken to also taste good as well and not just burn your head off.”

Hattie B's co-founder Nick Bishop Jr.

A tip from a pro

If you are a hot chicken virgin, the Hattie B’s guys recommend you start with medium and work your way up the ladder of heat. “If you’re really beginning and want to step into traditional hot chicken, I suggest everybody goes medium,” Nick Bishop Jr. (pictured here) says. “You are going to get burn, but it’s not going to be overbearing. And then you can decide if you want to make that next step.”

Hattie B's executive chef John Lasater

And a word of warning

Order the “damn hot” or the “shut the cluck up” at your own peril. “It’s definitely a different kind of heat,” Hattie B’s executive chef John Lasater (pictured here, before he shaved his beard) says. “It’s really funny when you get someone that’s new to it that feels like they can dive all of the way in. We’ve seen the biggest guys you can imagine in tears and running to the bathroom.” Just don’t say you weren’t warned. “We try to give them fair warning,” Nick Bishop Jr. says. “It doesn’t stop everyone.”

It's more than just chicken

Hattie B’s executive chef John Lasater studied at the French Culinary Institute in New York City, but just as importantly, he grew up in the South eating his grandmother’s cooking. So the sides at Hattie B’s include such Southern favorites as black-eyed-pea salad, red-skin potato salad and pimento mac-and-cheese, as well as collard greens, baked beans and coleslaw. Desserts include banana pudding and seasonal cobblers -- blackberry in the spring, peach in the summer, apple in the fall and cherry in the winter. On Sundays, Hattie B’s also serves waffles, cheese grits and seasonal fruit.

All in the family

Hattie B’s Hot Chicken is a true family affair. Not only are co-owners Nick Bishop Sr. (right) and Nick Bishop Jr. (middle) father and son, but John Lasater (left), the executive chef, is their son- and brother-in-law. Lasater married one of Nick Bishop Sr.’s twin daughters, Brittany. “John came on board with us in June of 2012,” his father-in-law says. “John helped refine a lot of this and get us to the point where we were taking it up a notch.”

The new kid on the block

The new Birmingham location of Hattie B's Hot Chicken is at 2808 Seventh Ave. South in the 29 Seven retail and residential development in the bustling Lakeview District. It's just a couple of doors down from Sky Castle Gastro Lounge and across the street from Jack Brown's Beer & Burger Joint. Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to midnight Fridays and Saturdays, and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sundays. To see a full menu, go here.